Third time lucky? Will v3 finally bring select, cut, copy and paste to the iPhone?

UPDATE: Tuesday 17th March. To answer the question before I pose it for new readers of this blog, the answer now is “yes” (see more appended).

Will version three of the iPhone software, to be announced this Tuesday, finally bring select, cut, copy and paste to the iPhone? I would hope so. Tethering would be nice and so would video, push, background applications and stereo Bluetooth — but no requirement has been as long suffering nor as blatantly missing as select, cut, copy and paste.

11:06 PT – DM: Copy can also copy HTML. “I’d like to swim with the dolphins.” Put the finger and it’ll select the block. It uses the same technology that helps Safari figure out how to zoom in to detect the blocks. Paste back in Mail and it pastes in the rich text. Say you didn’t mean to paste that? Shake to Undo! Shake it again and you can redo paste. Undo and redo multiple times.

11:06 PT – DM: Now, copy and paste between applications. Selecting a note in Notes and you can select text in a note, copy, leave notes to go back to mail, tap to bring up the bubble, paste and voila.

11:04 PT – DM: Scott launches Mail, and here’s a message from a colleague about a flight to Hawaii (Oceanic 815? Don’t get on that plane Scott!). Double-tap onto text and it automatically selects text. Pops up a cut, copy, paste bubble above the selection, and little tiny bubbles on both sides of the text, indicating the selection points. Double tap to bring up paste bubble (there’s also select and select all). Want to select block? Drag the second selection point, it pops up a magnifyer, and you can adjust the end-point. That’s it. I’m going to copy and paste like a fool when I get 3.0. Just because I can.

11:03 PT – DM: But iPhone 3.0 isn’t just new for developers; it’s new for customers too. More than 100 new features, and let’s take a walk through: CUT COPY and PASTE. There’s a round of applause at the appearance of a scissors icon. They think they’ve nailed it and Scott’s going to demo for us now.